NRA gunning for GOP school bill backers

The National Rifle Association and its Florida lobbyist, Marion Hammer, are taking aim at Republican lawmakers who supported a school-safety bill that included gun-control measures.

In a letter to members of the NRA and the Unified Sportsmen of Florida, posted online Wednesday by Ammoland, Hammer focused her wrath on GOP lawmakers — particularly Sen. Doug Broxson of the Panhandle town of Gulf Breeze — who supported the sweeping measure (SB 7026), which was rushed into law shortly after the Feb. 14 deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

“We supported the school safety measures in the bill: 1.) Hardening the schools, 2.) Armed security in our schools, and 3.) Keeping guns out of the hands of the dangerous mentally ill,” Hammer wrote. “We did NOT support the gratuitous gun control provisions added to the bill by REPUBLICANS. Those gun control measures are: 1.) A ban on the purchase of rifles and shotguns by adults under age 21, 2.) A 3-day waiting period on rifles and shotguns, 3.) A ban on the sale, transfer & possession of bump stocks & accessories that increase the rate of fire of a semiautomatic firearm.”

The letter contends Republicans who voted for the bill — signed into law by GOP Gov. Rick Scott — “lacked the courage to uphold their oath of office” and that Broxson, the “linchpin” as the bill was approved in a 20-18 vote, “caved to threats and promises from Senate leadership and switched his vote and sold you out.”

Hammer noted that “A” or “A+” grades of most of the Republicans in the Senate and House who voted for the bill are being re-evaluated.

“When they ask for your support, when they ask you to volunteer in their campaigns, when they ask for your donations, when they ask for your votes, think long and hard about what they had done. …,” Hammer wrote.